


To Begin Again

by alphaenterprise



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chuck Lives, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, chaleigh, idk what else to tag this as, kinda angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 17:09:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1695983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alphaenterprise/pseuds/alphaenterprise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck is left when Mako closes the door with a feeling in his chest that makes him feel hollowed out and the most adequate word that he can think of to describe it as he turns to leave is ‘bereft’.</p>
<p>..</p>
<p>The one where Chuck Hansen has a difficult time enunciating his emotions, and dying humbles a man enough to know when he messed up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Begin Again

It happens completely by accident, bubbling out of Chuck’s mouth like acid and bile and filled with hate and hurt and rage.

 

“You should have gone down with Gipsy!” he shouts at Raleigh, flat on his back on the Kwoon from their ritualistic sparring sessions for his physical therapy regime. It’s fueled with frustrations at himself, because his leg is aching and he limps like Gottlieb and everyone still treats him like glass even though he can run a mile at a good enough pace to show that he’s anything but, and a tiny part of him harbours resentment for the living Becket boy that was never reconciled. He glares with blind, black hate curling from his throat and into his words, up at his fellow ranger, fellow pilot, fellow survivor, and doesn’t see the expression that slots onto Raleigh’s face.

 

It’s pained, raw and open, and Chuck is rubbing chunks of sand and acid into the wounds that Raleigh had worked so hard to stitch up and hide for years, but it’s the first time that it’s ever been verbalized to his face.

 

And maybe it’s because Raleigh is up and around from his trip to another dimension even though Chuck’s busted up, maybe it’s because his scars are so starkly visible against his skin and he has no problems baring them, and maybe underneath it all is envy and anger and rage and he spits and bleeds words like an open wound. “You should have fucking died in anchorage instead, Raleigh fucking Becket! or you should have stayed under that goddamn wall you worked on!”

 

They’re awful and untrue and born of too much of a lot of things and he hates Raleigh Becket even more because he wears his heart on his sleeve and the words flay him open like butterfly knives and Kaiju teeth. Raleigh’s hands fumble and he drops his hanbo staff when Chuck rails on him in a fit of emotion. The smooth wood clickclacks, gunshots in the silence, and Raleigh ends up with the beginnings of a thin bruise when he doesn’t dodge Chuck’s swing.

 

He slams Raleigh down onto the mat viciously, sees red like blood, and snarls when he doesn’t get a verbal response. instead, Raleigh manages to manhandle Chuck off of him, head ducked down as if he’s expecting a blow, and turns around without even grabbing his things.

 

"You’re gonna run, Becket?" Chuck shouts, and his knee buckles when he gets up too quickly, "Gonna go hide again? There aren’t any fucking walls to build anymore, so what’re you gonna do?"

 

Raleigh spares him the barest of looks, fleeting and utterly hollow, and the Australian feels like ice has been dumped down his spine when he realizes exactly what he’s said. The words sit in his stomach like poison, heavy and aching, and he can’t believe that his own self-control had broken so badly. Chuck never intended to say things of that magnitude - not to anyone, really, because he’s not so low as to tell someone that they should be dead (except apparently he is) - but not especially because he and Raleigh had formed an easy camaraderie and -

 

"Fuck, Raleigh, wait!" he tries, and the words fall empty between them because Raleigh Becket has already hurried away.

 

**..**

 

Chuck doesn’t see Raleigh or Mako at breakfast the next morning, not even when he stays for an extra hour and is late to his physical therapist’s office. Max trails beside him, panting and wagging his stump of a tail, and he feels as if he doesn’t even deserve his own dog’s unconditional love. Especially not when max looks so utterly happy to be with him despite what he’s done.

 

Neither of Gipsy’s pilots are at lunch or even at dinner, and he catches the tail end of a nasty look thrown his way by one of the oldest of Gipsy’s tech’s when they bustle past. One of the bigger guys almost bowls Chuck over, bumping shoulders and sending the dull end of a giant socket wrench into the back of his good knee just enough to unlock it without it being a rough hit.

 

Tendo just shakes his head when Chuck greets him, snatching up an extra bagel that balances on the rim of his coffee cup to avoid the somewhat customary knuckle bump that they’d started up months ago. “Hey Hansen.” the tech says, cordial and polite, and tries to smile apologetically when he turns on his heel almost instantly, “sorry man, I’ve gotta get gone. The machines are needing some attention, if you know what I mean.”

 

Mako shows up in the mess that night, dressed in an open-necked hoodie and a pair of cropped sweatpants that she only wears as pajamas, hair pinned back and shoulders square as cut metal. The Danger crew flanks her, not obviously, but they tag along in loose formation that wards off any words or interference as she makes her way to the food serving area. She picks out foods quickly and efficiently, crackers and cheese and simple snacks, and something colorful that reminds Chuck of candy before it’s hidden in her jacket safely.

 

Chuck heads over, preceded by Max, who has no issue bumping against Mako’s shins for pets. Mako offers the dog a kind word and no more, instead staring Chuck down in the middle of his step with such muted fierceness that he freezes almost instantaneously.

 

She inclines her head with a sniff, and Chuck is left watching the jaeger crew disperse from the various exits of the mess with a feeling of threat blooming in his chest that mixes sickeningly with the guilt that had already taken residence.

 

So Chuck finds himself moving about the Shatterdome at ass o’clock in the morning, driven by restless adrenaline that makes his aching muscles thrum. Logically, obviously, he makes the trek to the heavy door to Raleigh’s room with words bubbling in his throat like carbonation and pop rocks. His fist is too loud in the metal hallway and for a moment, he feels guilty for knocking at such an early hour, but when he hears two sets of shuffling feet, he knows that he’s not disturbing anyone’s sleep.

 

Mako opens the door, slowly as if the hinges were in poor condition, and her expression is a mix of frustration and something intrinsically sad. “It is too early.” she tells him when he doesn’t speak, “and I do not think that you should be here right now, Chuck.”

 

"Look, Mori, I just - " the Australian tries, honestly he does, but his words fail in his mouth when Raleigh appears behind Mako like a wraith.

 

The usually vivacious, earnest pilot looks beaten, with his spine slumped and face pallid against the warm light radiating from the interior of the room. A blanket is hanging from his shoulders, hunched and for the first time in his twenty-one years of life, Chuck thinks that Raleigh looks impossibly tiny. “Please leave.” he says quietly, voice hoarse and nearly inaudible due to the natural din of the Shatterdome. “It’s very early.” And he disappears just as quickly as he’d appeared into the natural darkness of the room, emanating pain.

 

Chuck is left when Mako closes the door with a feeling in his chest that makes him feel hollowed out and the most adequate word that he can think of to describe it as he turns to leave is ‘bereft’.

 

**..**

 

He sees Raleigh here and there, in his peripheral and from far away, and it makes him so angry that he beats one of the newer recruits into the mat of the Kwoon on an off day before storming out with Max at his heels. The older pilot is like a ghost, wispy and nigh invisible, and Chuck is left with the impression of blonde hair and scarred shoulders every time he turns around. The ugly sweaters help him blend, seemingly infinite, and Chuck has catalogued ones that are blue and PPDC issued, with the logo embroidered on the shoulders and horizontal ribbing across the shoulders, and some that are knitted for thick winters with aged cream yarns, and yet even more still that are grey and maroon and made from wool or yarns or scratchy military issued fabrics. Some are too big and some are turtlenecks and some are fraying and some are clearly so old and worn that Raleigh has to bundle under them to stay warm, which makes zero sense because the Shatterdome is in no way cold enough to warrant wearing thick sweaters and in turn, it pisses Chuck off even more because he can’t make heads or tails of it.

 

So he does what makes sense to him and corners Tendo in the LOCCENT room early in the morning when the tech isn’t fully awake, halfway through his first cup of coffee, and starts talking rapidfire before any sort of net can be thrown up. “Look, Tendo, don’t you fuckin’ shut down on me goddammit I’m trying to fix whate’r the fuck I did.” he growls and snaps, and in some place of his mind, Chuck likens himself to a dog that has pissed on the carpet and knows he’s fucked up, and immediately hates that train of thought and crushes it like a Kaiju spine and keeps talking, “I want to talk to the stupid fucker, and I want to figure out why the fuck he’s - ” Chuck almost says why he’s wearing five thousand different sweaters, why he’s apparently cold all the time, why he’s a spectre, why he looks like he’s been gutted, and something must resonate with Tendo because the tech’s shoulders relax in resignation.

 

"Bring him some of these." Tendo says finally, finally, and is putting an enormous bag of candy in Chuck’s hands after digging it out of the file cabinets beside his messy desk. "And coffee. Half milk, half dark, in one of the big cups, with eight seconds’ worth of chocolate syrup."

 

The Australian blinks, eyes squinting, nose wrinkling, and brows knitting with confusion, but Tendo shakes the bag of hard candies insistently. “And this’ll work?”

 

"The rest is up to you, buddy." comes the response, and Tendo gives Chuck the boot so quickly that he is left staring at ‘LOCCENT’ painted in all caps on the door after it slams behind him.

 

"What the fuck am I doing." Chuck mutters to himself when he meticulously complies with Tendo’s coffee order, and puts a dab of honey in it just because his gut tells him to do so. The breakfast food is fresh and he gathers up a roll of bread that makes him think of Raleigh’s hair and a brightly coloured pastry tart that also makes him think of the danger pilot. "What the actual fuck am I doing."

 

The hallways are nigh empty with a stray employee bumbling about, either wide awake and strung out on too many energy drinks and coffee, or fumbling with sleep in their eyes, and Chuck traces the path to Raleigh’s door with absolutely zero effort. he inhales slowly, stands straight and leans back to feel the burn of his tight, scarred muscles to ground him, and knocks three times, succinct and efficient, and waits.

 

There’s a gentle shuffling and the heavy steel handle creaks open so slowly that it fills the whole hallway with sound. Raleigh peers out and Chuck adds the tan, almost sinfully ugly sweater that he’s wearing to his mental list of ‘Raleigh Becket’s ugly sweaters’ that he’s still unsure as to why he’s keeping. His expression is endlessly exhausted, leagues and miles long, and it begins to close off the instant that they meet eyes.

 

"I brought you breakfast." Chuck blurts, the words falling out of his mouth before he can try to say something more eloquent - or, he thinks traitorously, before he can say something stupid like ‘why do you have approximately five thousand different ugly sweaters’ or ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you like this because I idolized you as a fucking kid and didn’t know what to do with how I took your disappearance and physical therapy is the absolute fucking worst’ combined with a little ‘I want to wrap you up in a blanket and touch your hair until you fall asleep and don’t wander the hallways like the insomniac that I know you are you stupid fucking drongo and kiss your forehead’. "And some junk food." he tacks on, a little more loudly than necessary, because it helps him stop his thoughts from delving into his feelings concerning the pilot before him.

 

Raleigh looks surprised, hands falling to his sides and head tilting to the side some fractional amount, and blinks like an owl that can’t understand a thing. “Thank you?” he says finally, and balks when he’s handed an entire jar of jelly to accompany the tidbits that Chuck had grabbed. “uh..?”

 

"I nicked the whole jar because there weren’t individual packets." the Aussie admits sullenly, slapping a handful of plastic butter knives into Raleigh’s hands, and will sooner die than admit that his heartrate picked up when the blonde hid a smile by turning around.

 

"Come in." Raleigh says softly, slowly, and so hesitantly that Chuck toes off his shoes to avoid making excess sound. "Thank you."

 

"Didn’t know what you’d like." he grumbles, too embarrassed to properly accept the gratitude that he certainly didn’t deserve, and presents Raleigh with the still warm cup of coffee after Raleigh sits on his bed and Chuck takes the rickety chair by the heavy desk tucked in the corner of the room. "Had to ask Tendo about that." he explains when Raleigh sniffs at the drink surreptitiously, "Eight seconds of chocolate syrup, really?"

 

He gets a muffled snort as his reply and a silence washes over them when Raleigh begins to nibble at the food resting on his lap. Chuck takes the moment to examine the other pilot’s room and inwardly marvels at how much Raleigh had personalized the space. Old photos were tacked to the wall, printed on glossy Polaroid exposures most likely for ease of transport, and there are tiny annotations on every single one and probably on all of the ones scattered over the desktop as well.

 

"I’m sorry." Chuck tells Raleigh when he can’t stand the endearing warmth that builds in his chest upon watching the blonde meticulously collect crumbs from his sweater to avoid getting them on the floor and his words stumble out of his mouth all in a rush, "I didn’t mean what I said because I was fucking mad and frustrated and my stupid body hurts all the time and I prefer it more when you’re…"

 

Raleigh’s hunched in on himself and he studies Chuck with too many emotions in his eyes. it frustrates Chuck, because he’s spent all of this time digging up everything he’s saved from the Becket boys’ activity, news clippings and digital articles, and everything following Yancy’s death and he’s even refined his hacking skills enough to peek at Raleigh’s files and to at least get a semblance of what the American truly meant when he said ‘Yancy was still thinkin’ when he was taken’.

 

So Chuck gets up slowly, pose unassuming and careful as if Raleigh was a deer to be spooked, and edges into the blonde’s space. He quashes his pride and swallows his anger and hurt and frustrations at himself and gently touches Raleigh’s hair with the pads of his fingers before leaning in and brushing his mouth against Raleigh’s forehead in a way that he learned eons ago from his own mother. “When you’re here. and I’m sorry. I was angry.” his words are muffled, quiet, and barely audible to his own ears, and he’s shoving the bag of candies into Raleigh’s chest with zero finesse because he’s too busy spilling his guts in the form of words.

 

"Where’d you get these?" Raleigh asks instead, murmured and surprised, and makes no movies to dislodge Chuck.

 

"Borrowed ‘em from Tendo."

 

"He told me he didn’t have any more." the mutter is edged with petulance and Chuck smiles so widely against Raleigh’s forehead that it makes his face hurt.

 

"You have a lot of sweaters." Chuck ends up saying and feels Raleigh’s eyebrows raise as a nonverbal response. The blonde pulls away minimally and inclines his head enough to rest the sides of their noses together.

 

"I guess I do." Raleigh agrees, lips tilting up in a muted smile when he takes the initiative and brushes them chastely against Chuck’s own chapped ones.

 

It’s not necessarily okay, but it’s a start and that’s all that Chuck needs.

**Author's Note:**

> crossposting (finally) from my tumblr (alphajaeger!)
> 
> happens after pitfall in an au where chuck lives.


End file.
